Electronic devices, including portable electronic devices, have gained widespread use and can provide a variety of functions including, for example, telephonic, electronic messaging and other personal information manager (PIM) application functions. Portable electronic devices can include several types of devices including mobile stations such as cellular phones, smart phones, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), and laptop computers. Touch-sensitive input devices are useful for input on a portable electronic device.
Devices such as PDAs or smart phones are generally intended for handheld use and ease of portability. Smaller devices are generally desirable for portability. Touch screen devices constructed of a display, such as a liquid crystal display (LCD), with a touch-sensitive overlay are useful on such handheld devices as such handheld devices are small and are therefore limited in space available for user input and output devices. Further, the screen content on the touch screen devices can be modified depending on the functions and operations being performed.
Touch-sensitive input devices suffer from inherent disadvantages relating to user interaction and response. In particular, errors may be made in selecting features using touch-sensitive input devices such as double entry during selection as a result of a lack of touch feedback. While touch screen devices that provide feedback such as audio feedback are known, such devices do not provide a desirable tactile feedback. Further improvements in provision and control of tactile feedback in touch-sensitive devices are desirable.